Alumni news

Former BBC COO Caroline Thomson, who steered the Broadcasting House redevelopment to its conclusion, is still keeping her hand in the property market. The English National Ballet, which she chairs, wants to cash in the lease on its Kensington HQ, and join the English National Ballet School, currently based in Chelsea, in new yet-to-be-identified premises. Lambert Smith Hampton, also retained by the BBC, are doing the looking. Domestically, things aren't moving so fast for Caroline: her Kennington home, first listed for sale in April, is still on the market. Bucking the London trend, the asking price was cut by 2.9% in June, to £1.645m.

A grim year for former BBC Trustee, Antony Fry. He's recovering (well) from a stroke in March, but in June, announced he was scaling back his workload, and resigned as chairman of the Premier League. He's also a senior adviser to Espirito Santo Investment Bank, which is 25% owned by the struggling main Portuguese operation.

Tina, now Baroness Stowell, newly-appointed Leader in the Lords, has lots of BBC connections, made in nine years working for the Governors/Trust, as comms go-fer for Gavyn Davies, Michael Grade and Michael Lyons, then moving into the BBC proper, again in comms, under Ed Williams. Her rise is remarkable, from Chilwell Comprehensive School in Beeston, Notts, via secretarial training at Broxtowe College of Further Education, to the MoD, No 10 press office and more which has been well-chronicled. She ran William

Hague's office when he was Tory Leader, supporting her heart-throb, Seb Coe. Seb gave her advice on giving up smoking and running marathons; she could perhaps be helping him with a current job application.